Abstract
The ongoing profound economic crisis has caused some to turn back to Keynesian arguments and policy proposals aiming at introducing alterations to the functioning of the capitalist system in order to make it survive. We, therefore, choose to analyze John Maynard Keynes’ thought, first in its links with the economic mainstream of his time, then in his theoretical interpretation of money, the crisis, and the State. This is an opportunity for us to underline the limits of this paradigm, especially as far as money is concerned, and to argue that a return to the “Keynesian compromise,” on the model of that of the post-World War II period, is illusory.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Robinson (1971, p. 131).
- 3.
J.M. Keynes liked to say that the French are incompetent… just when the Popular Front was nationalizing. Or that the English preferred to deprive a sovereign of his power than of his head… See: Keynes (1971, p. 199).
- 4.
At the Second Congress of the International, Lenin, in the midst of praising Keynes for advising not to pay the debt, called him “a well-known bourgeois and (…) implacable enemy of Bolshevism” (Lenin [1965], pp. 213–263).
- 5.
Harrod (1951, p. 224).
- 6.
Keynes (1933, p. 233).
- 7.
Keynes (1920).
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
Keynes (1936, p. 29, introduction, note 1).
- 11.
Kicillof (2007, p. 154).
- 12.
This model was presented by Hicks (1937).
- 13.
Keynes (1936, p. 31).
- 14.
Ibidem, pp. 37–39.
- 15.
See: The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, p. 23, in Keynes (1987).
- 16.
Marx (1978, p. 199).
- 17.
Say (1996, p. 138).
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
Walras (2009, p. 179).
- 21.
Keynes (1936, p. 177).
- 22.
Ibidem, pp. 178–179.
- 23.
Ibidem, pp. 162–163.
- 24.
Ibidem, p. 86.
- 25.
Mandel (1985, p. 224).
- 26.
Keynes (1936, p. 180).
- 27.
Keynes (1926, p. 48).
- 28.
Quoted by Mattick (1972, p. 33).
- 29.
See: Bloumine (1952, p. 185).
- 30.
Robinson writes, in particular: “Many refinements and complications (…), neglected by Marx, are elaborated in the Keynesian theory, but the main outline is clearly to be seen in Marx’s analysis of investment as ‘purchases without sales,’ and saving as ‘sales without purchases’.” See: Robinson (1971, pp. 66–67).
- 31.
Harrod (1951, p. 462).
- 32.
See, for example, Marx (1974, pp. 121–122): “Nothing more silly than the dogma according to which circulation necessarily implies the balance of purchases and sales, since all sale is purchase, and vice versa. (…) [T]hese two acts, circulation separates them (…) [and] if the split (…) is accentuated, their intimate connection is affirmed – by a crisis.”
- 33.
Kicillof (2007, p. 443).
- 34.
See: Poulon (2000).
- 35.
Keynes (1936, p. 96).
- 36.
Mattick (1972, p. 39).
- 37.
As shown by Lavoie (1985), effective demand, as the anticipated value of sales, must in reality be interpreted as… supply.
- 38.
Keynes (1936, p. 228).
- 39.
Schumpeter (1951).
- 40.
Keynes (1930, vol. 2, pp. 150–151). We do not include here the author’s notes, but we respected his original punctuation. Eleven years earlier, he wrote in The Economic Consequences of the Peace: “Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. (…) [He] was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose” (Keynes [1920], pp. 219–220). Fine, but even if Lenin said that, he did not say—and did—only that….
- 41.
Marx (1972 [1859], pp. 122–123). Available on: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Contribution_to_the_Critique_of_Political_Economy.pdf.
- 42.
Vilar (1974, p. 35).
- 43.
See, for more details: Nakatani and Gomes (2010).
- 44.
- 45.
Keynes (1936, p. 229 et s). Available on: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125515/1366_KeynesTheoryofEmployment.pdf.
- 46.
- 47.
Keynes (1936, Chapter 13).
- 48.
Ibidem, Chapter 15, Section II, pp. 179–180.
- 49.
Keynes (1936, Chapter 15, Section II, pp. 178–179).
- 50.
“Except in an insane asylum, who would want money as a store of value?” Read: Szmreczanyi (1978).
- 51.
Keynes (1936, Chapter 17, Section III, pp. 236–237).
- 52.
Ibidem, pp. 237–238.
- 53.
Keynes (1936, Chapter 15, Section I, points (i), (ii) and (iii), respectively, p. 203 et s).
- 54.
Ibidem, p. 209.
- 55.
Ibidem, p. 178.
- 56.
On this subject: Kicillof (2007, p. 457), where the author rightly links Keynes’s analysis of money (presented in Chapter 17 of the General Theory) to his conception of capital (explained previously, in Chapter 16).
- 57.
- 58.
Marx (1974, Book I, vol. 1, pp. 113–114).
- 59.
Ibidem, p. 140.
- 60.
For a detailed discussion of this issue: Macedo e Silva (2008, pp. 241–265).
- 61.
Keynes (1936, p. 228).
- 62.
- 63.
Minsky (2008).
- 64.
Papadimitriou and Wray (2008).
- 65.
Are we experiencing a “Minsky moment”? See, among many others, an answer sketched out by Kregel (2010).
- 66.
- 67.
Palley (2010). Available at: http://monthlyreview.org/author/thomasipalley.
- 68.
A Marxist critique against such arguments is due to Foster and McChesney (2010).
- 69.
Keynes (1936, Chapter 16, p. 227).
- 70.
Ibidem, pp. 228–229.
- 71.
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Herrera, R. (2022). Some Serious Limits of John Maynard Keynes on Money, the Crisis, and the State. In: Confronting Mainstream Economics for Overcoming Capitalism. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05851-6_5
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